


Precious Broken Things

by ktredshoes



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Form & Void universe, Gen, additional tagging to come as I figure them out, god-chosen universe, gods walk the earth and exact their influence on people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktredshoes/pseuds/ktredshoes
Summary: Eight years into the Great Depression and the world is stretching out in front of Bill “Hoosier” Smith in an endless dusty landscape with little to do but scrounge for odd jobs and finish high school.  How can being Night-chosen change a life that feels like it’s leading nowhere?
Relationships: Bill "Hoosier" Smith & Night (OFC)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20
Collections: Form & Void Sideslip





	1. May 1937

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the long bright dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25790872) by [captainkilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly). 



> Dedicated to Eva for allowing me to play in her brilliant Form and Void god-chosen universe sandbox, and for hours of discussion about what life in that universe would be like. Grateful thanks to MercuryGray, papersergeant-pencilsoldier, and warrior-healer for beta reading and for making this a better story. Google is a great research tool, but any mistakes in geography or local history are mine.

The first time he surrenders to Night, Bill Smith is fifteen – on the cusp of manhood (so he believes) and thinking about the future. Not that there’s much future to think about: eight years into the Great Depression and the world is stretching out in front of him in an endless dusty landscape with little to do but scrounge for odd jobs and finish high school. 

So when Jim Pye invites him along on a ridiculous excursion to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby, he accepts almost immediately, despite the fact that Jim is three years older, has a reputation for trouble, and the drive will take more than five hours round-trip.

Bill is mostly interested in seeing Churchill Downs all cleaned up after the January flooding of the Ohio River left the racetrack under 6 feet of water just a week and a half after his birthday. Jim is more interested in betting – though he loses his shirt betting that Pompoon, the prior year’s 2-year-old champ, will beat War Admiral. Jim is thus in a foul mood on the drive home and doesn’t want to talk, so Bill amuses himself reviewing in his head the wire-to-wire win by the small brown son of Man o’ War.

He thinks about how the horse was so fractious at the gate he held up the race for eight whole minutes! – before settling long enough for the starter to send the field off to a clean start. The Admiral went straight to the front and stayed there, showing his heels to the other 19 colts. He practically floated, in a loose, effortless stride like he wasn’t even trying hard, taunting the others while they pounded the ground in futility behind him. 

Bill thinks how grand it must be to ride a horse like that. Sometimes when he plays football and breaks loose to race downfield, he feels a thrill that might be akin to the fierce joy he senses in the beautiful animal. He thinks about playing with friends when he was younger – playing tag till sunset, light fading into twilight – the wild abandon of running into the dark, dodging between trees, never setting a foot wrong.

Staring ahead through the windshield, Bill has trouble gathering his thoughts into anything more meaningful; they scatter like the trails of dust motes picked out of the darkness by the headlights that shine into the far distance down the road. Bill has always loved the dark. There is something about the shape of a shadow that appeals to the solitary side of his nature that so many mistake for shyness. For as long as he can remember, he’s been more comfortable in shade than sunlight.

While he is thus wool-gathering, she speaks to him for the first time in his memory. 

_“Be with me,”_ she purrs, the sound thrumming through him. 

His eyes fly open and he stares wildly around the interior of the car, but he does not see anything but the car, his companion, and the road in front of them.

Bill’s startle catches Jim’s attention and takes his eyes from the road. “What’s your problem?” Jim growls.

“Nothin’, nothin’,” says Bill, shutting his eyes and turning his head away.

 _“You’re mine.”_ Her voice echoes inside his skull. _“I’ve always known. It’s time you did, too.”_

He feels the charge in the air as she finishes speaking, and he guesses Jim does too because he looks sharply at Bill, again taking his eyes off the road. At that moment, the front tire on the driver’s side blows out with a loud bang, and the car veers abruptly into the opposing lane. Jim fights to regain control of the car, trying to steer them back to the right side of the road, and as the car begins to slide sideways, Bill is thrown against the passenger door, cracks his head against the window, feels the wrap of her velvet embrace and loses consciousness.

What comes next are flashes of his boyhood and what he guesses must be his future. Laughing faces, frowning faces – thunderous, metallic sounds that make his teeth rattle. A woman, swathed in layers of fluttery black and silver organza, scattered with gold and red glass beads, sits down beside him. She takes his chin firmly in hand and turns his face towards hers. She looks like Myrna Loy, for whom he has been harboring a secret admiration since seeing three of her movies the previous year. 

“I know you,” Bill says.

“Of course you do,” she says, laughing softly, and he hears bells. Her eyes are alight with mirth, and her teeth are white and even.

“But I don’t remember why.”

“I’ve watched you for a long time,” she says. “I don’t wonder you have no memory of me. But the first time you climbed House Rock, I was with you.”

“I remember that, but I don’t remember you being there.”

“You weren’t meant to,” she says. “Do you know who I am?”

He looks at her closely. “I…don’t.” He looks again. “Wait.”

She nods encouragingly. “You do.”

“I do,” he says. And as sure as he knows this is a dream, but not a dream, he does know. “I do,” he repeats. “You’re…Night.”

She laughs again. “That’s right. And do you know why I’m here?”

He hesitates. “To choose…me?” She nods again. “How can you do that? I belong to the Shepherd’s Church.”

“It doesn’t need to conflict,” she says. “The Shepherd is a god, after all.”

“But…”

She shakes her head, and for the first time he sees her hair is also threaded with beads, silver, gold and red, matching the colors in her dress. “There is no ‘but,’ not here. You can continue with the Shepherd and be with me, or not. The choice is yours.”

“But what would I do?”

“Nothing now, but in the future…I couldn’t say when, but the time will come. This world is fractious.” 

She takes his chin in hand again and looks him in the eyes. He feels himself sinking into a depthless gaze, and thinks, _“How could anyone refuse this?”_ Aloud he says, “I don’t know what to do.”

“You can stay forever in the dark here with me,” she murmurs. “Or you can go back to that world and visit me once in a while when I need you. Or when you need me.” 

“I’ll do whatever you want,” he tells her, “but I want to go back.” She lets go of his chin, shakes her feathery sleeve down her arm before tracing her finger languidly through the air, then leans forward and kisses his forehead. 

He wakes to a scorching sensation in his ankle and a headache blooming like fire, and learns that Jim wrestled the car into the right lane through sheer stubbornness before skidding off the road and rolling the car on its side and wrapping it around a tree. Jim emerges from the accident with three fractured ribs, a busted kneecap, and a concussion. Bill suffers a twisted ankle, newly marked with a mysterious scar, and a sprained wrist from where Jim falls on him. Everyone says they are lucky to be alive and not injured more badly, Bill especially. 

Everyone except for Night, who laughs and informs him now that he is her chosen, _“Do you think I would ever let you die in such a useless fashion?”_


	2. Summer 1937

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to captainkilly and MercuryGray for encouragement and help breaking my writer's block.

Bill’s parents notice the change in him immediately, when they first see him after the accident. He doesn’t know how they can tell, and doesn’t get the chance to ask. 

Accepting Night’s favor has consequences. His father is philosophical in his acquiescence to a god-chosen son, but his mother is appalled and she goes completely to pieces. "The very _idea_ of your leaving the church is disgraceful! It's embarrassing!"

Seeing her distress makes Bill profoundly uncomfortable. He wants to ease her mind; he has never seen her so rattled. 

“Ma,” he says, “Ma, I’m still a member of the church. I can still _belong_ to the church. She says there’s no conflict.”

“She? _She?”_ his mother cries. “What do I care what _she_ thinks?” She twists her fingers into the cuffs of his sleeves, and pulls him toward her. “This family has always, _always_ been pledged to the Church of the Shepherd! For heaven’s sake, you’ve been confirmed since you were seven!”

He doesn’t know what he can say to ease her distress. It’s a helpless feeling, and he doesn’t like it. He awkwardly tries to comfort her by patting her arms but it’s a stunted movement—she’s clutching his shirt too tightly.

At last, his father intercedes, unwinding her fingers from Bill’s sleeves, and tugging her away. “Let the boy be, Helen. He has a right. And anyway, I knew boys in the Great War who were god-chosen, and they were all right. They were _fine_.”

Bill’s mother refuses to be consoled. “But what do we tell Father Tierney?” she cries, practically wailing.

“We don’t have to tell him a thing,” says Harley Smith. “Bill’s not going anywhere. You’ll still be attending services, won’t you, son? Every week, just like always.”

Bill nods. He wonders what Night will say. 

As it turns out, she doesn’t actually seem to care. “Pfftt,” she says, rejecting his worries with a dismissive wave. “Ask me something that matters.”

So he continues to attend the Shepherd’s Church each week, noticing every time his mother greets Father Tierney that her eyes dart in Bill’s direction in a quickly smothered panic.

One day after services, Bill casually drops back to talk to his friend Joe Jones. They’ve known each other since they were little, and have forged a decent friendship for all that Joe is a year older than Bill. “Hey,” he says to Joe.

“Hey yourself,” says Joe.

Three words between them, and full of meaning.

“I’m sorry about your ma,” Bill says. 

Joe’s mother died the week before the Derby. She’d been sick a long time, so in a way it wasn’t unexpected _but still_ , Bill muses, _your mother isn’t supposed to die before you_. In between his Louisville trip and being laid up after, he hasn’t had a chance to talk to Joe about it. _Better late than never, right?_

“‘s’alright,” says Joe.

“How’s your sister?” Lela is 13, the youngest of the seven Jones children, and along with Joe, the only one left at home. 

“All right, I guess. She cries a lot.”

“Yeah,” says Bill. “I guess she would.” 

They nod at each other, secure in the knowledge that they, as men and not boys, were tough enough not to cry, even for a mother. 

“You wanna go caving next weekend?” Bill asks.

“I’ll think about it,” Joe says. “Maybe.” His face scrunches when he looks at Bill this time. “Somethin’s different about you.”

“Like what?” Bill asks. He thinks Joe means his being Night-chosen now, but wants confirmation of what Joe sees.

“Dunno rightly. Like, there’s sort of a...blur around you that wasn’t there before.”

“What kind of a blur?” Bill asks, eager to know. “What’s it look like, exactly?” 

“Kinda like...if you took mica and smashed it to powder with a hammer.” Joe considers. “Sorta steel gray with a shine. Sort of a...sparkle? It ain’t always there, though. Kinda fades in and out.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Bill says, nodding. “My folks knew right away I was god-chosen now but they didn’t tell me _how_ they knew. Just said I looked different. Maybe ‘cause my Pop knew god-chosen when he was in the Great War. Can’t ask ‘em now, Ma starts cryin’ whenever it comes up.”

Bill doesn’t actually know much about the god-chosen—he doesn’t know anyone else in Martin County who does—but he’s heard stories from friends in school. Some of the tales are pretty unbelievable, and when he asks her about some of the wilder ones, she shakes her head indulgently at him and tells him he’ll find out himself soon enough. 

He goes hunting in the library. Surreptitiously, because he doesn’t want to talk to the librarian about it—after seeing his mother’s reaction, he decides it’s better to be circumspect. On a high shelf in the reference section, he finds a very battered copy of _Gods Among Us_ by Ambrose Wilkes. Its spine is cracked, pages foxed and dog-eared, the gilt on the cover and page edges worn to dullness—but the stories! He avidly reads the extravagant stories of Earth, Ocean, Quicksilver, Vengeance, Wisdom, Love, War, Balance...Night. 

_“Night is the shadowy, flamboyant, and mysterious daughter of Chaos and Darkness,”_ he reads _. “She has many children, and holds power over them all. Even Thunder fears her. Numbered among her progeny: Death, Doom, Distress, Deceit, Destiny, Blame, Retribution_ — _and Sleep, Day, Twilight, Sunset, Friendship, Dreams, and Strife.”_

The book also includes thrilling stories about people who were, like him, god-chosen—and were, unlike him, larger than life. The pages are filled with the likes of Alvin York, Theodore Roosevelt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Mary Edwards Walker, William Monroe Trotter, Clara Barton, Christy Mathewson, Cap Anson, Jim Thorpe. Bill despairs when he reads these names and their stories. 

“How do I live up to _that_?” he asks her, pointing accusingly at an illustration of Joshua Chamberlain leading the bayonet charge down Little Round Top. “These people were heroes! I’m not a hero.”

She blows raspberries at him. “Youngster,” she says (he hates when she calls him that, which is why she does it), “it’s true that many heroes are god-chosen. But not all who are chosen become heroes, and not all gods seek heroes. And you can’t believe everything you read.”

Then she swipes the book from him and perches on the top shelf while she reads it, giggling the entire time. When he climbs on a chair to try to take the book back, she holds it up out of his reach, and starts reading aloud in a sonorous stage whisper, until he stalks away, seething, while the librarian trails behind, shushing him. He doesn’t bother trying to explain.

Meanwhile, the scar on his ankle is a constant reminder that he is now bonded with Night. Sometimes he finds it soothing to trace the pattern with his finger, the graceful web of silvered black shot through with a twisted vein of gold. Sometimes it itches, which generally announces her presence. Also he learns never to go barefoot because the sight of it upsets his mother.

The question Night asked him after the accident haunts him: _“Do you think I would ever let you die in such a useless fashion?”_

Sometimes Bill feels like his life is already useless. Night blows raspberries at him again whenever she senses this train of thought. He hates when she does that, and she knows it, so she does so at every opportunity. He appreciates her support but doesn’t know how that’s going to get him out of the trap of not knowing if he has a future, here or anywhere.

He thinks a lot about what he will do when he’s done with high school. There isn’t much work in Loogootee, hasn’t been since the Depression started. Or even before—since the glass factory shut down when he was four—and not so much in the rest of Martin County, either. So many farms have failed throughout southern Indiana that the government started buying them up. The idea is to stitch the parcels together into a national forest, and the Civilian Conservation Corps is offering work, repairing the eroded land, and planting trees to reforest the abandoned properties. 

He’s been getting used to the idea of having to leave town to find work, but that means leaving his family and friends, and he hates thinking about that. Maybe the Corps won’t be such a bad alternative, he thinks.

Mary Margaret, Bill’s sister, is four years his elder and his brother Ed is eight years his junior, so he’s always been a bit of a loner, finding his own ways of keeping himself entertained. Not that he doesn’t have friends besides Joe, but as the middle child, Bill is used to being overlooked and, sometimes, he rather enjoys it. He’s always been a careful observer and finds it easier to watch and learn if he stays quiet. So he’s learned how to fade into the background, at home, at school, and in the outdoors, which he explores any chance he can get. 

There are spectacular sights to be seen in and around Loogootee and he’s been exploring since he learned to ride a bicycle. He remembers the first time he climbed House Rock when he was 12. He’d sat down in the entrance and for hours just stared out below. He finally curled up near one face and slept there—his mother was frantic when he returned home the following day. Bill realizes, thinking back, that the breezy sounds around him then were her whispers, that she was with him even then.

After accepting Night’s favor, he becomes bolder. When he hikes the 30-odd miles to explore Wesley Chapel Gulf and seek underground entrances to the karst caves, he feels her presence most strongly, and he likes it. But she alternately encourages and discourages the chances he takes, reminding him of the dangers of cave-ins and flash flooding, even as she pushes him to stay out later each time. She teaches him how to control shadows and how to summon darkness with a gesture. He is astonished to learn that he can now see for hundreds of yards in the pitch dark of moonless nights.

Night brings music with her when she visits. She rarely sings but she hums incessantly, and when she is disturbed, she goes off-key. One night, while visiting him at an overnight trip to Orangeville Rise, she goes flat. “Can you at least _pretend_ to care about staying on key?” he complains finally. 

Her laughter is something he is beginning to find irritating when it comes at his expense, and there's an edge to it now that serves as a warning he knows he should heed. Lack of sleep makes him reckless though and he practically snarls in reply, “What’s so funny?”

“You.” 

He rolls his eyes and gives her his best deadpan stare. He decides to ask her the question that’s been on his mind for weeks.

“Why did you choose me?”

Her eyes are luminous and daring. “You were never afraid of anything, even as a small child. Especially not of the dark.”

“That’s it? That’s all there is to it?”

“Youngster, that’s _everything_. You have no idea.”

“I guess not.” Bill says, doubtfully. “But that doesn’t make sense—it gets dark every night. Doesn’t stop anything. Light a candle, light a lamp. Or wait till morning.”

“Practical, as always. I’ve always liked that about you, too.” Her eyes are dancing now. “But I’m not talking about the dark, I’m talking about your fearlessness. Of the new, of the exciting.” She laughs. “Of the old, of the dull.”

Bill has assembled a small pile of pebbles, which he begins to toss into the water, one at a time. Slowly, while he thinks. When he looks up at her finally, his eyes are welling slightly, though he is not certain why. “I’m afraid of all kinds of things,” he says. “Rattlesnakes. Bobcats. Flunking math.”

“Oh, youngster,” she sighs. “That’s not what I mean, and I think you know that. One of these days, when you’re ready to talk seriously— _really_ seriously, no futzing around—we can have this conversation again.”

Bill loves his little brother Ed but lately has started finding the younger boy’s hero worship more irritating than flattering. Seems like everywhere he goes and every time he turns around, Eddie is there. Partly because of trying to escape his younger shadow, he expands his circle of exploration. Fortunately, Joe Jones is willing to go along when Bill wants company. 

Joe is curious about Bill’s explorations and they often have long conversations about what he’s seen and what he’s found. More than once, Joe wants to hear the story of Bill slipping off to House Rock and spending the night there when he was 12. Hiking up there becomes a favorite destination of theirs, though Bill is getting quite tired of Eddie’s incessant begging to be taken along one day.

“You’re not old enough,” he tells his brother for the umpteenth time.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Please, Billy?”

“Stop calling me that. No!”

Joe is halfway up the street on his bike, waiting. “We goin’ or not?” he calls back, impatient to be on their way.

Bill turns back to his brother. “No, Eddie, for the last time, you can’t come with us,” he repeats, and pedals after Joe, leaving his little brother staring after him, rubbing the tears out of his eyes. He feels a little bad to upset Eddie, but criminy,Bill is in high school now, he couldn’t be hanging around with little kids any more. 

He catches up to Joe, and they both stand up on their bikes and pump the pedals hard and fast till they feel the wind in their faces.

They’ve each brought a sandwich and a rolled-up blanket for their planned trip to Wesley Chapel Gulf—the weather is fair, no rain expected, and Bill has convinced Joe it’s a good weekend to explore the gulf bottom and check out the caves. They intend to sleep over one night near Orangeville Rise before returning home.

It’s a good trip, and they arrive early enough to have plenty of daylight left to explore. Bill has tried to explain to Joe that they can still make their way about after dark thanks to his newly developed night vision, but it’s no soap to his friend.

“I don’t understand how it is you can see so well in the dark all the sudden,” Joe says, and Bill can tell he’s cranky about it.

“It’s on account of being Night-chosen,” Bill says, not for the first time feeling impatient always having to explain.

“Well, yeah, you told me that before,” Joe complains. “All this god-chosen stuff, it plain don’t make sense to me. And anyway, my pop says it’s against the teachings of the Shepherd’s Church.”

Bill looks at him, aghast. “You talked to your pa about this? Who else’ve you told? My ma’s gonna whip me, she finds out your pa knows.”

“Don’t worry,” Joe says. “I didn’t tell him about _you_. I just said it came up talking to the fellows at school.”

Relieved, Bill slumps against the tree they’re sitting beneath. “You got no idea how Ma carries on, ever since she found out. You’d think I’d stolen from the collection plate, she’s that upset.”

“Has anybody ever seen this god, ‘sides you? I’ve never, just that shimmer I see sometimes.”

“Nah,” Bill answers. “I asked _her_ about that one time, she just laughed. She does that a lot. Says I’ll know when it’s time, and not before.” He heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Between that, and my ma, and Eddie always wanting to tag along after us, sometimes I wonder I don’t lose my temper.”

“Never seen you lose your temper,” Joe says. “‘Cept that one time at the fair last summer, Lela bumped you and made you drop your ice cream.”

Bill feels his face go red. “Don’t remind me, Joe,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Nobody’s ever gonna let me live that down.” _Least of all Lela_ , he thinks. He could swear Joe’s sister’s avoided him ever since. “Honest, I didn’t mean to get so mad. I mean, your sister’s a nice kid ‘n all. She think I’m still sore at her? She’s always disappearin’ when I come ‘round.”

Joe snickers. “Nah, it ain’t like that. She’d clock me, she knew I toldja, but she’s all sweet on you.”

“Says you!” Bill exclaims, dismayed. 

“On the level, Bill, she’s _always_ askin’ me about you. Cripes, sometimes it’s enough to drive me bats. If the little twerp weren’t my sister, I’d...I’d have to...” Joe trails off, at a loss to say what he’d have to do, but the slump of his shoulders makes it clear he’s tired of fielding questions from her about Bill.

Bill lets his head drop backward to rest against the tree. He wonders what he should do. The likelihood of interacting with Lela as a _girl_ and not his friend’s kid sister has seemed so improbable, he’s never considered the possibility. He supposes he will have to make more of an effort to talk to her next time he sees her at church. He suggests as much to Joe, concluding, “And if you could maybe trip her before she runs away from me again, I’d be all the happier not to have to track her down.”

Joe laughs and pats him on the arm. “Thataboy.” And with that, they unroll their blankets and call it a night.

Returning home mid-afternoon the next day lands them in uproar and confusion. When his mother spies him, she cries, “Thank God, thank God!” and rushes to embrace him—so tightly, he grunts in surprise.

Pulling her arms loose so he can breathe, he asks, “What’s going on?”

Stepping back, she looks around wildly, spots Joe but keeps looking around. “Where is he?” she demands. “ _Where is he?_ ”

“Where’s who?” 

The confusion on his face must be clear; she exclaims, “Eddie! Your brother! _Where is Eddie_?”

“He’s not here?”

“He _told_ us he was going hiking with you!”

“He said that?” Bill flinches, picturing his brother’s tear-stained face. “No, I told him he couldn’t come with me!”

_“Where is he?”_

“I don’t know!” But then with a certainty he hardly recognizes, Bill thinks he knows. _Scratch that_. _I know exactly where he went._

Night laughs softly in his ear. _“Thataboy,”_ she whispers, echoing Joe’s words from the night before.

He takes off with a screech of bicycle tires, pedaling furiously.

“Where are you going?” his mother wails as he speeds away.

 _House Rock. It has to be House Rock_. Bill can’t count the number of times he’s told the story of his first solo overnight visit there, the number of times Joe’s asked him to tell the tale, knows beyond doubt Eddie knows the story by heart. _Could he have—would he have—? It has to be. Has to be. Where else would he have gone?_

He pedals as fast as he can, barely checking his progress at street corners or intersections, fairly flying as he approaches his destination, feeling the urgency of the self-assigned mission. When he runs out of pavement, he continues on the dirt path—when he runs out of dirt path, he bumps over grass and gravel and tree roots—at last, he abandons the bike and begins to run. 

The sun is sinking and the light failing as he scrambles toward his goal, the massive sandstone blocks that form the natural shelter that is House Rock. A little frantic, he begins to call his brother’s name—“Eddie! Ed! Are you there? _Where are you?_ ”

Out of breath from his headlong dash, he collapses at length along the weedy trail, panting heavily while he recovers himself. Then heaving himself to his feet, he begins searching anew. He is suddenly aware that Night is alongside him, not so much running as pacing him, on light feet. 

“Breathe,” she says, demonstrating. She reaches out to rest her hand on his back, and he finds himself re-energized, no longer winded. “Use what I taught you.”

Bill draws a cleansing breath, salutes her with an index finger, and begins casting his Night-given sight through the deepening twilight, sweeping his view left and right through the forest shadows. Usually, he just looks far enough to make sure not to step in a hole or run into anything. _Breathe in, breathe out._ Now, as he focuses on finding Eddie, he sees details he hasn’t noticed before. A raccoon skitters through the leaves underfoot—an owl glides on silent wings through the trees—a deer raises its head toward him before turning to bound into the safety of thick underbrush. 

In a moment of clarity, he realizes this is the first time he is using his new skills for something meaningful, and not just as a parlor trick. Aloud, he says something very like these thoughts.

Night hums in agreement. She is, he is grateful to note, on key. 

Even his hearing seems sharper—are those bats overhead? The call of a mourning dove sounds nearby—in the distance rattles the coughing bark of a fox, and the rough growl of what must be a bobcat. He calls again for his brother, knowing with certainty that he must be close, and realizing that this surety also stems from what Night has bestowed upon him. As they mount the slope of the hill beneath House Rock, against the scratch of cricket legs rubbing, he hears a quiet, barely noticeable sob.

Bill peers toward the soft sound of plaintive weeping—looking—looking—till he spots an untidy bundle piled beneath a bush. He darts forward and kneels next to the bundle, reaching out gently to pat a small arm. “Eddie?” he says softly.

The shivering little boy looks up, cries, “Billy!” and hurls himself into his big brother’s arms.

Night smiles, and as she rises, the susurrus of her dress skirts helps Bill comfort his little brother.

Eddie sobs out his story with Bill’s arms wrapped around him, gradually calming down as he spills the tale. Upset at being left behind, the little boy had decided to spend the night at House Rock just like Bill had when he was 12. But in his agitated state, Eddie had set off with nothing but resentment, no preparation or supplies, determined to make it to the top of the rock no matter what. 

“But then I fell and I hurt my foot and I couldn’t walk and I crawled under that bush and I tried to make a bed out of leaves and I was scared and then it was dark and I couldn’t go to sleep and I didn’t know what to do and...and...and…” Eddie bursts into tears again, and buries his face in Bill’s shoulder. 

Bill rubs his back in gentle circles until he’s calm, then piggybacks him to the abandoned bicycle, settles Eddie on the handlebars to ride double, and pedals them both home.

The ride home is a welcome respite from the pell-mell dash to find his brother. The rushing sounds of the breeze in Bill’s ears are punctuated by Eddie’s occasional sniffle, and Night’s humming, still on key. Bill finds himself humming counterpoint. She smiles at him as she floats along his side, and he senses her pleasure in the harmony. He’s not sure if Eddie can see her or not; he’ll ask later. 

In his head, he hears her ask: _How do you feel?_

He answers her in kind: _Relieved_.

_Do you understand now?_

He looks at her quizzically. Realization dawns gradually as he thinks about everything that’s happened in the few hours since leaving his mother to look for Eddie. _It’s not exactly what I was thinking when I read that book,_ he replies.

Her laughter rings in his ears. _No, youngster, heroism rarely is_.

 _I’m not a hero. I don’t feel like a hero_.

 _I wouldn’t expect that you would_. Her response feels like a kindly pat on his shoulder. _Let me ask you, though: how will Eddie remember this?_

He looks up at the sky, as he pedals, sees the stars winking against the darkness. _Okay_.

 _This is the fearlessness that made me choose you, dear heart_.

He looks at her sharply but sees nothing in her fond smile but sincerity. It’s the first time she’s called him something other than “youngster.” _What are you talking about?_

 _You didn’t hesitate for a moment_.

 _Why would I? He’s my_ brother _._

She laughs like bells. _You’d be surprised, sweet boy_.

Bill thinks about the conversation the rest of the way home. Night continues humming.

As they near home, Bill sees their parents sitting on the porch. Their father has one arm around their mother as she leans against him, resting her head on his shoulder. Mr. Smith is the first to spot them, leans down to say something in her ear, and Mrs. Smith sits up, staring out into the street at them. 

Bill stops pedaling, and glides to a halt as their mother runs to meet them, their father moving more slowly behind her. She lifts Eddie from the handlebars, and cradles him, smoothing his hair with one hand, murmuring softly in his ear, until their father stops next to her. She hands him Eddie. “Thank you, son,” he says to his older boy, and carries the younger one into the house. 

Bill wheels his bike to the porch, turns back to see his mother silently facing Night, who is looking back at her gravely. After several minutes, Night looks up, raising her hands toward the sky, then gestures at Bill and waves him toward his mother. 

Still looking at Night, his mother opens her mouth to speak, changes her mind, and gives her a stiff nod. She turns to Bill and hugs him harder than he can ever remember. Over her shoulder, Bill sees Night smile. She throws Bill a kiss, tosses her head, and is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Wesley Chapel Gulf](https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/hoosier/specialplaces/?cid=fsbdev3_017567) is a fascinating natural feature in the Hoosier National Forest. Get a better view of the Gulf and Orangeville Rise [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-ruH_ACArg). This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw4GSZfScz8) has some lovely views of the bluffs and caves around Shoals, Indiana, including House Rock and Jug Rock.
> 
> The Smith and Jones families both were longtime members of St. John's Catholic Church in Loogootee, and Mrs. Jones did pass away in May 1937, but otherwise the adventures I've ascribed to Bill, Joe and Eddie are entirely from my imagination.
> 
> Thanks to captainkilly for allowing me to borrow Ambrose Wilkes.

**Author's Note:**

> It always bugged me that so many Pacific fanpage entries about Bill “Hoosier” Smith basically say “little is known about him.” I figured there had to be more than “He survived his wounds, got married, raised four children, and died in 1985.” This story is extrapolated from what I've learned about life in and around his hometown of Loogootee, Indiana, in the 1930s and 1940s, and punctuated with tidbits I was able to find out about the Smith family.
> 
> The Ohio River flood of 1937 did leave Churchill Downs under six feet of water, leaving in doubt whether it could be repaired in time, but it was and War Admiral did beat 19 colts in a wire-to-wire romp to kick off his Triple Crown campaign. Louisville is 80-some miles southeast of Loogootee, so a day trip would have been feasible, even if unlikely for an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old at that time. For the sake of the story, indulge me.
> 
> If you are not familiar with the Form & Void universe, I highly recommend your reading "the long bright dark" by captainkilly, "the prompting of some heaven-taught seer" by MercuryGray, and searching the tag #formvoidseries on Tumblr.


End file.
